Chapter Fourteen

Talia thought Reed was bringing her back into the interrogation room. But at the last second, he put his hand to the small of her back and kept her walking, his eyes down, turning away from two women in uniform flanking a red-eyed, greasy-looking guy in cuffs.

“Keep moving,” Reed muttered. Talia snuck a quick glance over her shoulder as they passed, watching the guy get led into the room.

The next thing she knew, he was steering her down the hall and into a stairwell. As soon as the door closed behind them, he whirled on her, eyes flashing. “You can’t do this,” he said.

“You’re being shortsighted,” she said. “And silly.”

“Silly?” he sputtered, stepping toward her so she was pressed back against the gritty concrete wall. “Excuse me for not wanting you to walk straight up to a known murderer and drug dealer and give him your name.”

“It would help you,” she said. He had a point. But she did, too.

“I can help myself.”

“I know that, I just—”

“And I don’t only mean that you can’t go undercover,” he snapped. “I mean you can’t talk to Aaron like that. You can’t go telling him things.”

Talia couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “I take it back. Silly is an understatement.”

She tried to get around him so she could leave. There had to be an exit somewhere.

But he reached out a hand, blocking her way. The touch of his arm made her whole stomach flutter. There was nowhere for her to go unless he moved.

She saw him glance quickly behind him. Up the next flight of stairs, and below. No one was there.

The next thing she knew, she was pressed against the wall. And he was pressed against her.

“Aaron doesn’t need to know what we’re doing,” he said into her ear.

She hooked a finger through his belt loop. “And what is it that we’re doing?”

“Nothing,” he answered, his voice husky.

Like him tracing his lips along the side of her neck was nothing. Like her pulling his hips into hers was nothing.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s exactly what this feels like.”

She stroked the front of his jeans, focusing on what was definitely not nothing there. The outline of his hard-on was enough to make her knees weak. She could jump and spin and leap across the stage, but she couldn’t spend five minutes in this man’s presence without starting to tremble.

“You’d better stop that,” he warned.

“Since when do you think you can tell me what to do?”

The next thing she knew, he had her pinned against the wall, his whole body covering hers. He thrust his hips against her, letting her feel every solid inch of him.

“You forget that I’m the one with handcuffs,” he said, his voice a heady, urgent whisper in her ear.

She put a hand to his chest, gripping his shirt. Somewhere between pushing him away and pulling him near. “What are you going to do, officer? Bend me over and punish me?”

She meant it as a joke. But the feel of his cock through his jeans said he didn’t take it that way.

“Don’t tempt me,” he growled.

She reached to unzip his jeans. She had to have him. Now.

Fast, hard, anything to satisfy the surge of desire within her. She wasn’t even thinking about where she was, what they were doing. She just knew that heat she’d felt as soon as she’d laid eyes on him across the room had to go somewhere. If Aaron hadn’t been in the interrogation room with them, she wasn’t sure what those walls would have seen.

Suddenly, a door opened below the landing where they stood. She froze, Reed’s fly wide open, his cock pressed heavily against her palm.

Neither of them dared to breathe. They heard footsteps, a rush of voices. A man in the stairwell was calling down the hall, saying he’d be right there.

Maybe he’d leave. Maybe he’d head downstairs instead.

But the steps rang out heavily in the stairwell, coming toward them, not away.

There was no way Reed had time to make himself presentable. He grabbed her wrist in one hand and his pants in the other. Before Talia knew it, they were racing up the stairs.

She expected him to stop on another landing to at least zip up. But whoever was behind them was taking the stairs two at a time. She didn’t want to think about how questionable it’d look for Reed to be caught hanging out with a random woman in the stairwell of a floor he didn’t work on.

They reached the top floor and she thought that was it, there was nowhere to go. There was a door, but a red sign said Emergency—Alarm Will Sound!

“Reed,” she started, but he pushed open the door. She braced herself for the noise—what the hell was he thinking?

But nothing happened.

“Just another broken part of the system,” he said and pulled her onto the roof as the door slammed shut behind them.

They burst into sunlight, panting and giddy. Talia gasped. From the outside, the building was nothing special. Just another slab of concrete.

But from up here, the city was transformed. The sun was beginning to edge down behind the Hudson, making the water sparkle and bathing the buildings in light. Everything was jammed in together—towering skyscrapers, new glass facades, intricate brick designs weathered over generations. Talia had never seen New York like this, a bird’s-eye view of hidden rooftops and winding side streets.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, still catching her breath.

“Sometimes I come up here when I need to remember why I love this place, and why I’m willing to work for it,” he said.

“And when you need to make a quick getaway.” She grinned.

He pulled her into a tight embrace. “And when I’m being tortured at work.” He groaned to let her know their near miss in the stairwell hadn’t been forgotten.

She couldn’t believe she’d just teased him like that. In public. At his job. She’d taken it too far.

And all she wanted was to take it further.

He stood behind her, his arms around her, his lips grazing her neck. She felt him tug at the waistband of her leggings, sliding his hand down to cup her ass.

She knew she should be mad at him. At least annoyed. She’d gone in there with a good idea. All he’d done was shoot her down.

But he’d looked so goddamn good, even when telling her no.

That frown of concentration at his desk before she’d caught his eye. The way he moved, strong and confident. Even the fire in his eyes when he was being short-tempered and overprotective. Maybe even especially then.

The heat on his face as he tried not to let his brother knew he had a—

Not a girlfriend, obviously. But a something.

She wasn’t supposed to let that excite her. She had enough on her plate as it was. She could practically hear Hal clapping out the steps, drilling into her that there were only three weeks left until the curtain rose and where is your head, young lady?

She should be at the studio right now, getting in more practice time. She should at least be heading uptown for a quiet night of stretching and sleep—not getting wrapped up in Reed’s cases. Or in his arms.

But she couldn’t help melting into him as he held her.

“Now, where were we?” he murmured into her ear.

“I believe you’d just been threatening me.”

“Oh yeah. How could I forget?” He kissed her neck, across her back, running his hands over her body, her breasts, down her sides. She let him touch her, caress her, his strong hands making her feel ravaged. Held.

“And then this happened.” She reached behind her to stroke the this she could feel once again through his jeans.

“Someone could still come up here,” he warned her. But he made no move to stop her from unzipping him again.

“You’d be busted,” she said. “But not me. No one knows who I am.”

“Which is why you’re not allowed to come to my office.”

She laughed. “Afraid your brother might see you have a soul?” She tilted her head back against him. His hands went up her shirt, sliding under her bra, teasing her nipples.

“I’m afraid of you getting your ass into trouble,” he said.

“I hate to break it to you, but my ass is already done for.” She pressed back against his hard-on. “And it’s all your fault.”

“I’m serious. You can’t get involved in this shit.”

She knew he was talking about the case. But he could have also meant…them. Him. She couldn’t get involved with him.

But it was too late.

He was already walking her forward, toward the ledge that ran around the edge of the roof. It wasn’t exactly a hidden spot. Anyone in a tall building could look over and see them. Someone could bust up the stairs and onto the roof at any second. Even if he kept her covered with his body, it’d be obvious what two people pressed against the ledge were up to.

There were so many reasons not to do this right now. Even more reasons not to do it ever.

But there was no way she could pull back. “Then try and stop me,” she said.

She felt his arm move. Then heard the snap of something behind her. She didn’t know what he was doing, until she felt cold metal sliding up her skin, above her yoga pants, under her tank top.

Instantly, her whole body went on alert. She felt the drum of her heartbeat, the rush of blood in her veins. He reached around and pressed his hand between her legs. His other hand teased the metal down her back.

Handcuffs. He’d said it in the stairwell, but she’d thought he was kidding. She hadn’t dared imagine it.

Or maybe, she hadn’t dared hope.

Excitement kicked up inside her. And nerves. Her mind was racing, wondering what he’d do, how far they were going to take this. How far she wanted to go.

Whether, when it came to Reed, she’d ever actually stop.

“Do you need this?” he said in her ear.

He pressed the handcuffs to the small of her back and his fingers to the fabric between her legs. Her whimper was one word, but it was the only word either of them needed. “Yes.”

It took her breath away how quickly he put the handcuffs on her. Knowing that when he used them, normally, he was using them for real. That was why he was so practiced, so fast.

This wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a game. It was his life.

And it was hers. One moment, her hands were free. They were just playing. She was teasing. The next thing she knew, her wrists were held tightly behind her back. Not so tight that it hurt, but there was no way she was getting away.

Max had tied her up once. It was a silly, drunken thing, him pulling off his tie and yanking her wrists clumsily behind her. At the time, it had seemed wild, even with all the fumbling.

Now, the memory almost made her laugh out loud. It had been only her own kindness that stopped her from letting her hands slip from his knot. The whole thing seemed so innocent, like it must have happened to somebody else.

Not like it was with Reed, when everything was sharper. Stronger. More alive.

They still had every item of clothing on. But she wasn’t sure she’d ever been so turned on. The heat between her legs was a desperate ache pulsing inside her. He held her so closely, there was no pretending that she couldn’t get away.

“On your knees,” he growled.

A shiver snaked through her. Reed didn’t say anything he didn’t need to. He didn’t talk to fill the silence, or because his mouth was running away before the rest of him caught up. When he gave the command, she knew that he meant it with every fiber of his being. For all his self-control, he couldn’t pull away any more than she could.

She turned to face him. Dropped to the ground. Someone else might have been unsteady without the use of their arms, but Talia was a dancer. She knew how to do this. Not that she’d done this before, but she didn’t stumble.

Reed towered over her. His pants were unzipped, and he reached a hand inside. When he took out his cock, she tried to reach for it out of instinct. But her wrists pulled sharply against the metal, a reminder that this wasn’t a game with a gentle, ticklish scarf, safe in a bedroom where no one could see.

These were real handcuffs, nothing like the fuzzy pink ones her friends used to squeal over when they first discovered kitschy sex shops in the Village. They were really doing this. Reed wasn’t fucking around.

He held his cock in his fist and brought it to her. She opened her mouth, accepting, but he didn’t put it in yet. He ran it over her face, the softness of his silky head fluttering against her eyelids, over her cheek, tracing the first of his liquid across her lips, onto the tip of her tongue.

He slid it in, pulled out, pushed into her mouth again. He groaned, a rich, masculine sound that made her thighs clench and her mouth water.

This was no kind of helplessness. This submission, the surrender on her knees, bound, was not a giving in but a taking. She wanted to take him, and take him, and take him. In the sunlight, on the roof, not caring about anything but the feel of him inside her.

He brought his hands to her hair, holding on. She couldn’t touch him, but she could feel the strength of his ass, his hips, his thighs. She could feel every inch of his desire.

The ground bit into her knees. Her arms strained behind her. But she was protected by the ledge of the roof, by the fact that maybe, just maybe, anyone who looked over would see only a man standing, admiring the view, and not the woman on her knees before him.

But right when she thought that was it, he was going to spill inside her and then they’d be done, they could head downstairs, back to their regular lives, he pulled out and lifted her by the arms. She stood, hair falling out of her loose bun and into her eyes. He brushed it back and kissed her. Or not so much kissed as consumed.

He kissed with his whole body. He kissed like it was his first breath after drowning. His first drink of water for days. He kissed like he’d been hungry, lost, wanting.

And now.

And now he’d found what he’d been missing all that time.

He turned her in his arms, so she was pressed against the ledge, both of them taking in the view. Maybe it looked like they were admiring the sunset, but that wasn’t the only thing happening.

He pulled on the handcuffs, holding her in place between his body and the ledge. Then he brought her pants and her underwear down around her knees, the air on her bare skin making her shiver in delight.

His thumb teased across her clit. “You feel so good,” he murmured, letting his cock slide over her ass.

She whimpered, and of course he knew what she wanted. His two fingers pushed inside her, splitting her deliciously. She panted and leaned forward. She would have braced herself against the ledge, but the handcuffs stopped her. Instead, she was all his, pressed against the edge, held up in his arms.

The sun turned the stray clouds golden and the city went about its business far below. Up on the roof, Reed fingered her clit, circling, pressing everywhere she needed until she came, gasping, whimpering against his hand, her legs trembling and threatening to give way.

“Are you ready for me, baby?” he asked when she finally came down, panting. He stroked her softly, and she knew he could feel the answer. Not like that stopped her from begging for more.

She felt him shifting, pulling out his wallet. Heard the crinkle of a condom wrapper. She stayed where she was, leaning against the ledge. He hadn’t restrained her legs, but they weren’t working so well anymore—not after the orgasm she’d just had.

She might have thought she was done, she was satiated, she didn’t want any more. But it didn’t work that way with Reed. Once she had a little bit, all she wanted with him was more.

He stood behind her. She felt his jeans against the back of her thighs. The brush of his T-shirt on her bare skin. He kicked her legs open wider, yanked down on the handcuffs to pin her there, and pushed inside. Steady. Hard. Up to the hilt, his groan mingling low and throaty with her desperate gasp.

And then he began to fuck her.

She’d never done it like this before. Hard, dirty, relentless. In public, unable to wait another second to have each other. Needing it, both because of and despite where they were—and all the reasons why they shouldn’t have been there together in the first place.

He put his hand between her body and the corner of the ledge, pressing his palm to her clit. “Come again,” he told her. “Use me to come.”

She ground her hips against his hand, feeling the dual pressure of his cock inside her and his hand against her clit. She held on, she held on…and as soon as his breathing told her he was close, she let go.

She came right after he did, the sensations drawing out between them. Then she lay, limp against the ledge, the weight of his body warm and safe against hers. She heard the click that said he’d unlocked the handcuffs. But even after her arms were freed, she didn’t want to get away.

He kissed his way across her back and pulled out, wrapping up the condom.

“We should leave separately.”

It didn’t matter that he kissed her cheek when he said it. She still felt the words like a knife. What did he think was going on here? Just who did he think she was?

Then she turned and saw his face and burst out laughing. “There’s no way you can show your face in the office, Reed.”

“I have to go back to work.”

“Your brother’s going to know exactly what you’ve been up to while we’ve been gone.”

“No, he won’t.” He sounded even more defensive. But all she could do was shake her head.

“You’re flushed and actually smiling. Trust me.” She laughed again. “He’ll take one look at you, and he’ll know.”

He grumbled something about how Talia should be the one with the badge but agreed they’d both sneak down the stairwell and out the back door. She took his hand and followed him down, grinning at their little spy routine.

She had no idea what was happening between them, but one thing was clear. There was no way they could hide this anymore.